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Guide · Permit data

Free building permit data: where US cities publish it

Updated · Rotomal

Many large US cities publish building permits as open data you can download or query for free, usually on a Socrata or CKAN portal: New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Boston, Philadelphia and San Diego among them. The US Census Bureau's Building Permits Survey adds monthly counts of new residential permits by place. Most smaller cities and counties publish permits only through a search portal with no export, which is where the manual work starts.

City open-data permit datasets

Each link opens the city's own dataset page. Field names, history and update frequency differ by city; check the dataset's metadata before relying on it, and note that some cities split permits across several datasets or systems.

CityDatasetLink
New York CityDOB NOW: Approved Permitshttps://data.cityofnewyork.us/d/rbx6-tga4
ChicagoBuilding Permitshttps://data.cityofchicago.org/d/ydr8-5enu
Los AngelesBuilding and Safety: Building Permits Issued from 2020https://data.lacity.org/d/pi9x-tg5x
San FranciscoBuilding Permitshttps://data.sfgov.org/d/i98e-djp9
SeattleBuilding Permitshttps://data.seattle.gov/d/76t5-zqzr
AustinIssued Construction Permitshttps://data.austintexas.gov/d/3syk-w9eu
BostonApproved Building Permitshttps://data.boston.gov/dataset/approved-building-permits
PhiladelphiaL&I Building and Zoning Permitshttps://opendataphilly.org/datasets/licenses-and-inspections-building-and-zoning-permits/
San DiegoDevelopment Permitshttps://data.sandiego.gov/datasets/development-permits-set2/

National statistics: the Census Building Permits Survey

The Census Bureau's Building Permits Survey publishes monthly and annual counts of new privately owned residential units authorized by building permits, by state, metro area and permit-issuing place. It is the right source for market sizing and trends; it does not list individual permits, addresses or contractors.

What open data usually contains

  • Permit number, type and a free-text work description
  • Address or parcel, sometimes coordinates
  • Application, issue and final dates, and status
  • Declared valuation in many cities
  • Contractor of record in some cities, often as a name and license number

Where open data runs out

Open-data cities are a minority of permit-issuing jurisdictions. Suburbs and counties around a metro often publish permits only through a search portal (Accela, Tyler and similar systems) with no download or API, and some portals' terms restrict automated access. That is the gap paid permit-data services and Permit Weekly fill: reading the portals that have no feed, on a schedule, and filtering for one trade.

Using permit data for leads responsibly

  • Permits are public records, but how you contact a property owner is regulated: check TCPA and Do Not Call rules before calling or texting.
  • Prefer the contractor of record for B2B and supplier outreach; homeowner contact details are not part of most permit records.
  • Respect each portal's terms and rate limits if you collect data yourself.

Questions

Is there a free nationwide building permit database?

Not with individual permits for every jurisdiction. Cities publish their own data, the Census survey gives counts rather than records, and nationwide record-level databases are commercial products, some with free tiers.

How quickly do permits appear in open data?

It depends on the city: some datasets refresh daily, others weekly or less often. Each dataset's metadata page shows when it was last updated.

Sources

Guides and answers